By the time Batman crawled out of the car, looking somewhat disheveled, his understanding of vehicle emergency safety systems had reached a whole new level.
He shook his slightly dizzy head, opened his eyes, and walked around the car, intending to haul the Joker out as well.
But then he discovered that the rear door had vanished in the explosion, leaving a convenient opening to crawl through. While Batman had been wrestling with the airbags, the Joker had already slipped away through the back.
Batman took a deep breath and looked through the Batmobile at the massive crater in front of the steps, blasted out by several Rocket Launchers at once.
Then he looked up and surveyed the surroundings, confirming that this really was the waiting hall of Arkham Asylum, not Elizabeth Street in Gotham or the utility room of Living Hell.
During the time it had taken him to free himself from the car, the situation at Arkham Asylum had changed yet again.
Since the ghost had appeared on the third floor, the patients there had acted first. Once the fourth and fifth floors were alerted, they had provided fire support for the third floor. The poor ghost did not hold out for long before turning into a faint green glow and vanishing on the spot.
But Gothamites had always been thorough about finishing the job. To make sure the ghost was completely dead, they had used some safe, regulation-compliant weapons to thoroughly disinfect the area.
Most of the patients here were poorly educated. They did not understand load-bearing walls or structural mechanics. They simply picked a corner and hammered it to death, using not only guns but explosives as well. As a result, the corner of the third-floor corridor was blown apart completely.
Fortunately, Arkham Asylum was not